For the benefit of those who may be first-time shoppers for leathers, I wanted to share a summary of my recent experience. Please feel free to add any comments / differing opinions you may have.
The first task is to determine what you want for leathers: jacket/pants combo, 1-piece suit, or 2-piece suit. For me, that part was relatively easy. Assuming comparable quality, one-piece suits most likely offer the best protection. If you plan to spend most of your time at the track and/or racing, this is probably the best choice. As most of my riding (thus far anyway) is street/highway/canyon, I wanted the capability of taking off the jacket without having to let it dangle along behind me or tie it around my waist. At the same time, I wanted something that was suitable to use at the track. In short, I wanted a jacket/pants combo or a two-piece suit. The decision between jacket/pants combo and a two-piece suit was a little more difficult. You can find very similar quality with many of the same features either way. In general, jacket/pants combos will cost more than a comparable (quality and features) two-piece suit. While jackets come in a variety of designs and colors, most (not all) standalone pants tend to be black. Having full cruiser leathers, I am well aware of how hot black leather is, so the lighter colors available with suit pants was appealing. Finally, I preferred the appearance of the suits (top and bottom design/colors match). Primarily for these reasons I decided to go the two-piece suit route.
With that decision out of the way, here are some of the things I took into consideration (not necessarily everything I wanted, just things I considered):
- Leather quality (type and thickness): I wanted something reasonably heavy that was suitable for both track and street (1.4 mm - 1.7 mm thick leather seems to be on the higher end).
Perforated vs. non-perforated leather (At what locations? Some are fully perfed, others are partially perfed): I wanted perforated leather as I tend to get warm easily.
Venting: How many? Where? Are they adjustable?
Zippers: I wanted metal zippers, rather than plastic, primarily for strength and durability (over the years I've not had good luck with plastic zippers).
Top/Bottom attachment zipper: I wanted full circumference.
Knee cups.
Knee pucks (Some come with, some have the velcro but the pucks are extra, some don't support pucks at all)
Armor (dual-density vs. plastic).
Stretch panels or flex material inside arms, crotch, back of knees to avoid bunching of leather in those locations.
Race hump.
Double/Triple/Multiple stitching in impact/high abrasion/critical areas.
Reflective markings.
NOTE: Pay attention to sizing. Some manufacturers use US sizing, others use European sizing! Also, just because you wear a size 48 from Manufacturer A, don't assume a size 48 from Manufacturer B will fit you. It doesn't always work that way.
For research purposes, I went down the Manufacturers list on the CSC website to find out what each manufacturer offered. Once I narrowed down my choices, I used the Shopping list on the CSC website to check pricing. With regard to pricing, let me say that it varies considerably (into the hundreds of $) between online vendors. Pay attention to shipping and return/exchange policies and fees. In general, sites that stock items will cost a little more, but offer quicker delivery. Sites that order the stuff you want, then turn around and ship it to you are generally a little cheaper, but it takes a few extra days. Stockers tend to have more liberal return/exchange polices and cheaper return/exchange fees than non-stockers. That said, don't let what seems to be an expensive return/exchange rate alone eliminate a vendor from contention for your business. In my case, I was able to find a vendor that with their pricey exchange rate (assuming I got the wrong size) was still cheaper than the 2nd cheapest vendor!
The end result of my research was an AGV Sport Talon Two-Piece suit ordered from Helmet Harbor. This suit had about everything I wanted and was one of the few two-piece suits available in fully-perforated leather. Since this was my first suit, I couldn't find any place that carried AGV Sport suits in the Denver metro area to try on, and I fell smack dab in the middle of sizes on the AGV sizing chart, I added the exchange fees for all vendors to their price on the assumption that I may very well have to do an exchange to get the right size. I ended up ordering two different sizes so I could try both to get the better fit, then returned the one that didn't fit me as well. Helmet Harbor, with their 20% restocking fee, was still cheaper than the next cheapest vendor on this suit. It was a closeout and as another member found out, is no longer available via Helmet Harbor.
For those of you that are interested in a two-piece suit, drop me a PM with your email address and I'll email you an Excel spreadsheet that I used to compare the two-piece suits from various manufacturers. There may be a few manufacturers that I missed, but I think it includes most of them. It may save you some time in going to each manufacturer's website to find this info. I have similar, although much less detailed information about jacket/pants combos. Since I had eliminated one-piece suits as an option for me, I didn't gather this info for one-piece suits.
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Originally Posted by wraithR1";p="184923
